Would you pay your users $15 for a review?

Dear starters,

Pat Walls here, creator of Starter Story.

As you know, every Thursday I send you an email highlighting the best case studies that we've published on our platform. This is a bite-sized summary of the most interesting experiences that starters have shared with us.

I hope you enjoy it!

And remember that as a newsletter subscriber, you are eligible for a very special deal to enjoy unlimited access to our Ideas database. Join us now and get Starter Story Premium for $79/year, a 45% discount from our regular price. That’s just $1.71 per week, an absolute no brainer investment in your business.

Would you pay your users $15 for a review?

This week we spoke to Caroline, the cofounder of a $240K/year online signature tool. Due to the pandemic, the demand for this type of solution has been rapidly growing. But what if I told you that one of their tactics with the best ROI is to pay $15 for a review of their product, is that something you’d try?

Check their story to see how much they make with that strategy and what other things they do to grow 5% each month.

Want to know more about businesses that have thrived despite COVID19?

• Ajay’s Gmail plugin reached 1M users and $300K/month
• MonetizeMore grew 118% and makes over $5M/month
• Stacia’s product reached $1.6M in gross revenue

Is freedom the new wealth?

A tweet by one of our starters went crazy viral in Spain this week:

We spoke to Bosco a while ago and he shared his journey of starting a virtual coworking that at the time was making $36K/year. And just like him, many founders value the freedom of being able to travel the world while running their businesses:

• Maarten makes $180K/year developing WordPress plugins
• Kressa travels in an RV to promote her $240K/year business
• Johanna and her family enjoy a nomad life while making $600K/year

Hacking Yelp's algorithm = $9M/year business

Myles and his team developed a software to easily monitor and analyze the performance on local platforms like Google Maps, Facebook, Bing, TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc. They serve over 20,000 customers a year across 8 countries with a staff of 190.

Did you know that local SEO could be such a big business?

• Chris’s agency makes $10M/month doing SEO just for lawyers
• SearchEye is a $1M/month platform to order anything you need for SEO 

Bonus: Want to grow your SEO acquisition channel? Check out our guide on How to Grow Your Business Through SEO and my Lean SEO Course: Our Framework For SEO Traction. 

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100+ niche products that make $1M+/year [Real examples]

Want to start an e-commerce business but not sure what products to sell?

Picking the right product isn't easy, but we're here to show you what is working for others.

Over the years, we've interviewed thousands of successful e-commerce businesses - so we decided to put together a list of the most successful niche e-commerce products.

Ready to start? Check our detailed guide with everything you need to know

5 Chrome extensions that will grow your business

Do you use Google Chrome? If so, you would be crazy not to have these Chrome extensions installed. We use these tools daily and could not live without them.

Also, if you want to write like a pro, Chrome can help you with that too! Here are a couple of extensions that we’d recommend checking out.

Trending articles this week

1. I started my business before I could drive and today we’re close to $200M/year

2. The Moz co-founder created an online tool that reached $75K MRR in just 6 months

3. I left a Fortune 500 company to build a $200K/year sales automation software

4. $300K/year getting backlinks for my clients

5. My side project does one simple thing & makes $14K/year

6. These Bangladeshis built a $150K/year portfolio of online businesses

7. I learned to code and my first app makes $2K/month

8. I almost retired at 28. instead, I built a $6M/year digital marketing agency

9. $3M/year developing clone apps for startups

10. Create A Data-Driven Content Marketing Campaign: A Guide

Looking for a job, or some work on the side?

Get your feet wet before you take the plunge into founder life.

Many of the companies we interview are hiring in operations, design, marketing, engineering, and more...

Check out our jobs portal for all new opportunities - new jobs are added every day!

Thanks for reading!

Pat

🙏  If you enjoyed this newsletter, you could really help me doing one of these things:

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2. Forward this email to a friend who’s starting their own business!
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I really appreciate you sharing and spreading the word. It really means a lot!

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